As a younger adult I moved around for my work, and for a couple of years, I lived in New York City. While there, I participated in a writers’ group where every member was a native New Yorker except me. I was the lone country girl.
The advice of the day to young writers was, Write what you know. So I often wrote about growing up in the country. One day I brought to the group a story about feeding the horses on dark winter mornings. The other writers liked the piece, but they were surprised by it. “Where are the adults in this story?” one asked. “Why are children handling those huge animals with no adults around?”
That’s hard to answer if people aren’t familiar with horses. The fact that horses are large is not the whole story. Anyone who has had horses or worked around them knows they are potentially dangerous, yes. But horses are complicated. They are prey animals who look to their humans—even human children—for care and safety. I remember as a child being very aware that these big beasts trusted me and did my bidding, and I was amazed by it. The fact that we ride horses means we have a very different relationship with these herd animals than we have with a house pet.
Fully exploring the human-horse relationship is beyond what I can do. I’ll let the contributing writers tell those stories. There are stories here from both men and women, and I learned that more women than I ever imagined wanted horses when they were girls. (Raise your hand if you collected Breyer model horses!)
These remarkable stories run the gamut from the intimate friendships between human and horse to seeing a horse as a metaphor for some aspect of one’s life. Some horses in these stories show up at the right time—to help a healing man gain strength, help a woman move on after grief, help a young man feel capable, even help people in hospitals. Horses aid a child with anxiety or another child who won’t speak. Some horses provide an opportunity to learn something new—how to handle bullies, how not to judge by appearance, how to trust.
Sometimes the horse’s strong, steady presence helps people adjust to life changes or helps a teenager stumble through adolescence. Sometimes the helping is mutual—rescue the horse and the horse rescues you back. In a few stories, the horse is background or a symbol for a whole other experience. And you’ll meet another equine—a sweet-natured donkey whose surprise appearance helps a family laugh through the tough times.
I hope you enjoy these stories as much as I’ve enjoyed collecting them. Now let’s join the storytellers in this book and have a closer look at some of the most magnificent animals in creation.